Car Travel Power

[Tattooist]

Every time I make "normal" toons I always try to rationalize how they use travel powers. Jetpack, super-jump, hover, flying, it's always an issue with trying to justify it not to mention, playing as a fire-fighter or a police officer that is some-how jumping like spider-man just never looks right thematically! I started thinking about the cars that constantly move in the game and how we can even use cars as objects in bases, would any of you think it's possible to use cars as a travel power? Now here me out here, I don't have any statistics at all (I'm not a math person lol!) nor do I have any idea on what the speed percentage / jump percentages would be but here is what I CAN visualize for the car travel power:

 

1. It functions similar to weapon customization on the costume changing UI where you can customize the power and change it to other pre-set vehicles in the game. Pre-set vehicles would be the various ones you see in game, like the golden car, the police cars, tanks, race cars, vans (for the hippies!), perhaps even a "blank" car you can select a color and paint for (if the coding is possible) 

 

2. (Broke Version): Once you press the car travel power, you "poof" into the respective vehicle you choose. 
(Wealthy Version): New animation set of character waiting for vehicle, going inside vehicle and changing into said vehicle. I imagine the car would just appear out of no-where, maybe park by your character in a speedy-fashion.

 

3. Something to fill this line. I have no other suggestions really. I just want to use a car in this game lol.

[Glacier Peak]

[Greycat]

As a "travel power," the only way I could see this is like some sort of zone teleport, where you get in and drive offscreen, then arrive at your destination. Basically Team Transporter.

 

As a standard travel power? I don't see it happening.  Just think of everything you can do while using one of the other travel powers - especially attack. Now imagine having to redo *every* attack/buff/debuff/attack reaction/other animation to be done "while in a car." Or does that car disappear?

 

Are we making this just a solo car or can others join in? How do we deal with hitboxes? Is it a convertible so we don't have to worry about peoples' heads clipping out the top of the car?

 

Is the car restricted from moving over water, air, really rough terrain? If you have a mission on the other side of Indy Port, are you having to drive around the long way? If you have a mission in Nerva, are you going to have to pick up a secondary travel power or jet pack?  (Before some post-live changes, for instance, I pretty much always picked up combat jumping if I picked up superspeed because there were times I needed more vertical "oomph" to get places.)

 

Soooo.. yeah, unless you're wanting the team transport but as a car (in which case you're losing any real chance at customizability,) there are a *lot* of hurdles to turning a car (or motorcycle, another semi popular ask) into a travel power. If they could do it? Great! But there's a fair bit to actually doing it decently.

[Rudra]

The problem with cars as a travel power, is how do you explain driving a car inside an office building? And if you take the approach CO did that vehicles as travel powers can only be used on zone maps, then why can't your character be driving his/her/their/its car on the instanced city maps some missions use?

[Rudra]

5 minutes ago, Greycat said:

As a standard travel power? I don't see it happening.  Just think of everything you can do while using one of the other travel powers - especially attack. Now imagine having to redo *every* attack/buff/debuff/attack reaction/other animation to be done "while in a car." Or does that car disappear?

It would work like the Rocket Board et al. travel powers. You can't attack from those. You have to turn off those powers to fight.

 

Edit: Oh, and as far as motorcycles and other options go? A grav bike could work, since it is basically a sit down version of the Rocket Board.

 

Edited October 11 by Rudra

[Triumphant]

Quote

The problem with cars as a travel power, is how do you explain driving a car inside an office building?

 

My explanation:  My character is a reckless maniac. 😝

 

I don't think I would want to use it in a building/on a combat map, though, as the S.T.A.R.T. vendor travel powers turn off all your other powers.  Would be fun for just tooling around zone maps in friendly/low-hazard areas, though.

[Greycat]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

It would work like the Rocket Board et al. travel powers. You can't attack from those. You have to turn off those powers to fight.

 

Edit: Oh, and as far as motorcycles and other options go? A grav(ity) bike could work, since it is basically a sit down version of the Rocket Board.

 

 

Right, which is why I said a "standard" travel power - one of the ones in the pools.

 

IF we're talking one of the temp (I know, perma-temp) powers, I'd have to assume as a car your character model would be completely replaced with that of the car (and no clear windows, of course.) Which does rather limit the customizability the OP might want.

[Rudra]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

 

Right, which is why I said a "standard" travel power - one of the ones in the pools.

 

IF we're talking one of the temp (I know, perma-temp) powers, I'd have to assume as a car your character model would be completely replaced with that of the car (and no clear windows, of course.) Which does rather limit the customizability the OP might want.

I misunderstood. Apologies.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Snowbunny said:

Every time I make "normal" toons I always try to rationalize how they use travel powers. Jetpack, super-jump, hover, flying, it's always an issue with trying to justify it not to mention, playing as a fire-fighter or a police officer that is some-how jumping like spider-man just never looks right thematically!

You need to step away from our current definition of "normal" - In CoH, even the newest hero or villain gains access to the medi-port system, which can bring them to the nearest medical facility and instantly restore them, regardless of how damaging that last attack was.  Further, even baseline human characters can withstand multiple point-blank shots from a firearm without being KO'd.  Additionally, groups like the Sky Raiders demonstrate that tech like jetpacks are no longer consigned to the realm of fiction.  If you were to introduce cars as a travel power, they'd have to be restricted to the ground, and even if they were capable of jumping, that'd have to be limited to outdoor areas and perhaps with some startup distance.  I think you'd be better off advocating for something like a hoverbike or maybe a variant of the hoverboard that could be slotted and further customized...

Edited October 12 by biostem

[Chris24601]

Instead of a car, I’d suggest a Vehicle Support pool out of it.

 

1) Motorcycle. The pose for riding one already exists thanks to the Thugs MM. there’s also a section of the slide in where the bike is at an angle while the rider has his leg on the ground. For attack animations the bike drops off once they start (use the last bits of the MM summon) and then gets re-summoned once combat movement suppression ends. Functionally, it’s superspeed right down to the improved jump after building up some speed.

 

2) Chopper Pickup. A zone teleport where a Helo appears overhead, a rope drops, and you use the Spec Ops summon animation in reverse to go up off screen. Once the new zone has loaded a rope drops and you use the Spec Ops summon animation normally to arrive.

 

3) Ambulance/EMTs: Self-rez that also teleports you back to the map entrance  (instead of back at a hospital).

 

4) Turbo-boost (must have motorcycle): toggle that adds significant +jump to the motorcycle power.

 

5) SWAT Support: drops a SWAT Van in any outdoor location that functions as an inspiration and possibly temp-power vendor for a short time.

 

All of those should be doable via existing assets and would cover the “I don’t have innate travel powers” hole with a few extra options to round out the set.

[Luminara]

What happens when the car reaches water?  Stairs?  Cliffs?  The cake room and the tunnels which are too narrow for a car to fit, much less maneuver?  Office maps?  The Shadow Shard?

 

A flying boat with wheels and the magical ability to shrink down to the size of a Peel P50 but can be handled by an ordinary citizen might stretch the bounds of credulity a bit.

[Triumphant]

2 hours ago, Luminara said:

What happens when the car reaches water?  Stairs?  Cliffs?  The cake room and the tunnels which are too narrow for a car to fit, much less maneuver?  Office maps?  The Shadow Shard?

 

A flying boat with wheels and the magical ability to shrink down to the size of a Peel P50 but can be handled by an ordinary citizen might stretch the bounds of credulity a bit.

 

What happens in real life when a car reaches stairs, cliffs, or water?  Answer:  You stop and turn around.

If you're asking about players that don't care about that, that drive up cliffs and across water, up stairs, etc?  If you want to try to explain it within the context of the game environment (I wouldn't- it sounds like a zero-sum game to me.  But whateves)... I dunno.  Speed Buggy?  Chitty-chitty-bang-bang?  Or whatever.

 

The whole game and it's associated genre stretch the bounds of credulity, though, so I don't see the point there.  🤷‍♂️